PUBLICATION: The New York Times DATE: April 9, 1999 SECTION: Section A; Page 14; Column 1; National Desk
The New York Times reports a Kentucky town near the Louisville International Airport agreed to an airport buy-out only if the entire town could be moved together. FAA officials consented to the request, the first of its kind in the United States.
According to the article, when Louisville International Airport opened the first of two new parallel runways four years ago, residents of Minor Lane Heights, five miles from the airport, were offered a buy-out funded by state and Federal grants that would allow property owners to purchase houses in quieter places. But residents of Minor Lane Heights made a demand so unusual that Federal Aviation Administration officials now say it could be a model for other communities caught in the noisy path of expanding airports. Rather than break up lifelong friends and neighbors, Minor Lane Heights officials told the airport authorities that residents would agree to move only if they could stay together. That meant moving everything, including the 552 households and the 9-member police department. "We've never encountered this big a deal, a community making a decision to move this way," said Stan Lou, an FAA official.
The article reports "For a lot of people, noise wasn't the biggest problem," said Carole Cantrall, a City Council member who is credited with proposing the idea of keeping the city together. "The major problem was living in limbo, losing their house and losing their neighbors. Now, they're thrilled. They get to keep everything that's important to them, plus they have a new home." While some residents of Minor Lane Heights have already taken buyouts and moved elsewhere, many more of the residents are waiting for construction of their houses. Some residents like David Weedman and three of his neighbors have selected lots in almost the same relation to where they live now.
The article goes on to say each year, the aviation industry spends millions of dollars to ease the exposure of residents near airports to the roar of jet engines. The 1998 budget for the program was $200 million, a 28 percent increase over 1995. In some places, the money is used to soundproof houses. In others, houses are bought and razed. Tests in Minor Lane Heights showed that soundproofing would have been inadequate. The community will not be restricted to former Minor Lane Heights residents. The airport, which needed the runways to accommodate the growing fleet of United Parcel Service jets that are based in Louisville, plans to recoup some of its investment by razing the abandoned town and reselling land to businesses that need to be near the airport for shipping.
The article states to honor the residents' request to stay together, the aviation agency set up a program with a $10 million grant, which the airport matched, to help pay for a new site for the city. This arrangement allowed the airport to buy 287 acres of farmland 10 miles southeast of here and hire five house builders. By this fall, the first 50 families are scheduled to move to their new community, Heritage Creek, which planners say will include 351 new houses in the first phase of construction. More houses are planned over the next few years. But not all the residents of Minor Lane Heights like the plan. James Roeder, who has lives with his mother, said they were not moving to Heritage Creek. Roeder said his mother would move in with her mother, who lives nearby but outside of the area affected by noise. Roeder intends to move to Alabama. "For my mom, this had been a real hardship," he said . "She is hating this. But you've got to do what you've got to do."
According to the article, residents living near the new community have concerns. Some have hired lawyers to investigate ways to stop the move, fearing that their rural ways would be forever changed with traffic and noise. "The traffic alone is going to be an astronomical problem," said Richard Vreeland, a real estate agent who lives beside Heritage Creek on a two-lane road, the widest in the area. "Having them here is going to mean no more deer, no more wildlife, no more peacefulness." But efforts to halt construction have all but stopped. Ground-breaking ceremonies for the model homes were held two weeks ago, and Colleen McKinley, a Louisville lawyer representing the resistance group, said her clients had determined they could not match the relocation program's financial resources in a legal challenge. But Minor Lane Heights Mayor Fred Williams dismissed the grousing. Standing in fields where houses will soon be built, said: "Look at this place. Isn't it beautiful?" A plane flew high overhead. It passed by in silence.
